Just a GPSL NPCs (birthrightnpc) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-02-11 22:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | npc |
Benjamin and His Friends
Who: NPC Doherty (Written By Jess)/NPC Jonas Blackburn (Written By Gazer)
What: Making a Move
Where: Las Vegas
When: Present
Ratings/Warnings: Medium
Doherty might have been in over his head. He had discovered a world of magic and the supernatural, and dove in head first instead of dipping a toe. Of course, he was driven by the great, classic motivator. Revenge. He wanted Noah/Tim/Micah to get what he deserved, and to do that, the cop had to get on the same playing field.
He had paid a lot just for the privilege of learning the dealer’s name. He had even more than that in his pocket as cash, ready to part with all his savings. He would do it for his family, their memory. What kind of monster killed an entire family on Christmas. A pyrokinetic, apparently. Doherty had never even heard the term before.
So he found himself in a seedier part of town than usual, at a house that should have been condemned under any reasonable building code. It looked like it was held together with magic. The front door was made of some kind of corrugated metal, a closed slot at eye level. Doherty knocked loudly, his knuckles protesting.
Jonas Blackburn was a heavy sleeper.
He was a fifty-six year old Taurus from Seattle with a bull’s head tattooed on his upper back. Twice divorced, he’d moved to Nevada once his second wife remarried and he no longer had to send alimony, taking advantage of the more lenient law enforcement presence to make himself available to those who wanted to learn the darker arts, but didn’t want to go to the trouble of years of book study. He brewed and sold potions, dealt in spells and charms, did some subtle scrying.
He was in the middle of a particularly vivid dream, having drunk some ayahuasca tea before a nap, and the sound of a knock on metal echoed like a gong calling to him from a long distance. Jonas believed in astral projection and being able to leave his body, though he could never recall his experiences afterwards. An aging flower child who was both potent and dangerous enough that he kept his workshop glamoured, should anyone bother to look for him.
When he finally roused himself from slumber, he realized that the sound was not Brahma signalling that the universe was about to end through his waking, and his bare feet made a slapping noise against the uncarpeted floor when he sat up on the unmade bed. He dragged his fingers through his messy hair, tousling it further, cleared his mouth with some water from the pitcher on the bedside table.
He checked the spy hole, studied the antsy-looking man through the small opening, closed it. While he didn’t exactly take appointments, there were those who knew how to seek him out, but this was an unfamiliar face. Jonas gave it another minute, then opened the door enough so his visitor could see a sliver of his face.
“What?”
Doherty watched the slot slide open, catching a glimpse of weathered, furrowed brow. He cleared his throat. “I’m here to open the third eye,” he said, the code he had been provided at the Rabbit Hole, feeling ridiculous as he said it. For all he knew, he was being set up for an expensive practical joke. He sure as fuck hoped not. He had drawn from the coffers of an account that he had hidden from his ex, an supplementary retirement of sorts. The cop needed this to work.
There was no other alternative.
“Mmm.”
Fuzz, was Jonas’ first thought, and he flicked a glance over the other man’s shoulder to see the empty street beyond. Did they call cops the fuzz anymore? Probably not. Ah, well. He could read cop all over this guy, though.
“Did you bring Benjamin and some of his friends?”
Because one thing he didn’t do was give charity or work for free, even for his few and far between friends. His faith in himself and his abilities aside, he was also a pragmatist, and pragmatists had bills to pay. One hand lifted, scratched a spot on his shoulder.
It was almost a relief. Money, Doherty knew. That was a language he spoke. He reached into his pocket, careful and slow so the guy didn’t think he was reaching for a gun, and produced a wad of hundreds crisp from the ATM. It had hurt to watch the machine spit it out, knowing it was about to disappear. “I’m not looking for trouble,” he said. “I’m looking for revenge.”
Jonas assessed the money and the inherent risk of letting a stranger into his sanctum. If this went bad, he’d have to relocate, and despite the squalor of the neighborhood he liked it here. Hiding in plain sight was how he’d developed his customer base, and he didn’t want to lose that. Revenge, though? That piqued his interest.
“Shut the door behind you. There’s a box on the table just beyond it. Put the cash inside.”
He moved away from the door, unshod feet moving slowly as he stepped further into the sparsely decorated room. His mouth was still dry from the tea, and he poked around in the mini fridge in the small kitchen until he found a cold bottle of water. He looked back over his shoulder, having neglected to don a shirt before answering the door. The bull on his right shoulder blade seemed to watch his visitor, beady black eyes alert.
“Your wife?” he asked, because it was usually that, a busted up marriage because somebody poached. “Something else?”
Doherty entered the dwelling, managing to hide the trepidation he felt. It was like he imagined it would be, which was either comforting or disturbing. His gaze landed on the tattoo, and it seemed to reaffirm why he was there. He tossed the bankroll into the box after shutting the door behind him. It reminded him of a cell being locked. Not used to that from the other side.
“A pyrokinetic killed my family,” he explained, the words flat, not from any dulling of the feeling behind it but rather fatigue in the retelling. It felt like a movie plot he had to describe over and over. “I didn’t even know what the fuck a pyrokinetic was. He just lit the house on fire on Christmas Eve and let them burn.”
Jonas’ sleepy expression turned into something more aware, something more interested. True pyrokinesis was rare, although he knew more people had a little of the gift than was known. Those who walked on the gray - or darker - side of magic could work spells that passed for it. Even he’d been known to dabble now and then. He drank a third of the water, then another mouthful.
“You’ve already chased him here?”
The question was important. When the man said he wanted the third eye opened, the distance with which it could see wasn’t limitless. Jonas put the water bottle down. Scrounged around on the nearby counter until he found an elastic hair tie to make a sloppy ponytail. His narrow chest was pale, dotted in places with scar tissue, some of it self-inflicted.
“The eye sees far, but my range isn’t boundless,” he intoned, indicated a straightbacked chair if his ‘client’ wanted it. “A fire-worker should attract attention.”
Robert Doherty looked down at the chair. Usually he wouldn’t sit while someone else stood over him. It was a power move, one his old captain used to employ and it pissed him off. Probably one of the many reasons he was passed over and his brother got promoted instead. This felt different, though. The power here was somewhere else. Something else. He settled his weight into the seat. “No chase. We somehow both ended up here. Here, being Vegas,” the police officer clarified.
He drummed his fingers against the armrests. “I don’t want to kill him. I want him to feel as helpless as I did when I found out that my people were wiped out. I want to take away his power, and then I want to watch as he realizes it.”
Jonas actually smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners, and his teeth were surprisingly white and straight for a man his age. He believed in karma too, that if you did something bad enough, you opened the door for the universe to put a foot in your backside. If he’d been less pragmatic, he’d have offered the man a discount for the ingenuity of it.
“Dump water on the little bastard, huh? I like it.”
There were some cupboards where he kept his spell ingredients, and he studied the shelves for several minutes before starting to make his selections, mumbling to himself. Fire was an elemental, both creator and destroyer. Jonas said something unintelligible as he plucked a small jar from the bottom shelf.
Doherty had been thinking of nothing else for the last nine years, even if he hadn’t realized it. For someone who had grown up in a family of law and order, when it became personal, he had little trust in the system to truly deliver justice. Though maybe justice was a poor word for what he truly wanted. “Can it be done? Something easy, like...drugging his drink?”
“The easiest way would be to have something that belongs to your target, something he imprinted on. We leave psychic trails the way we leave fingerprints, that’s why targeted magic works so well. But I don’t think you brought anything along, so we go with the next best thing.”
Jonas’ bare shoulders were hunched as he stood over a glass jar he’d set out on the counter, carefully measuring out liquid from an eyedropper. The goal not being to kill the target meant he had to be very specific as to dosage. Poisoning would have been easier too, but his client wanted the target to survive this, if not to reflect on the Why of it. The universe could be a harsh teacher, but it depended on if the student was willing to absorb the lesson or not.
“How close do you want to be when it happens?”
“The same room,” Doherty replied quickly, a tell that he had been ruminating on this for a while. He could picture it clearly. He would invite Noah over and fix him a drink, just like he had done to Graham and Julie, and the kids. Rob wanted the pyrokinetic to feel the sting of humiliation at having his own trick turned back on him.
“It won’t be hard. He thinks I’m harmless. He would never see it coming.” The cop smiled grimly, his eyes fixed on what he could see past Jonas’ tattooed back.
“Humility’s a tough pill to swallow. But it sounds like it’ll be good for him.”
Jonas put the eyedropper aside on a folded paper towel, studied the level in the jar as the contents swirled of their own accord. When he passed a hand over the opening, there was a muted warmth against his palm. He watched the iridescent surface gradually go still, the color fading until the liquid was clear again.
“Bad thoughts become bad intentions, and bad intentions are bad acts without form. Let the good burn away the bad. So mote it be.”
There was a clinking noise as Jonas put a glass stopper in the jar’s opening, let it sit on the counter for a bit longer. He reclaimed the mostly-empty water bottle, took a drink.
“Give it a couple more minutes. And, piece of advice. Once he figures it out, watch your shoes. Vomiting is pretty common, usually self-induced.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for that,” Doherty answered wryly.